So I intended to craft a comprehensive, containing book by which he whom Allah has caused it to reach and has favored him with it may seek illumination; and even if the believers attained nothing besides it, in it is sufficiency and guidance from him whom Allah has granted success and guided; and I am following, in what I tend toward, the clear and illuminating path, the path of the Great Leading Sheikh, the Scholar, the Practitioner, the Brilliant, the Virtuous Master, the Sheikh of the Way (Tariqa) ¹ , the model of Reality (Haqiqa), the essence of the necklace of the righteous predecessors, Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn bin Hamdan al-Khasibi—may Allah double his good deeds, honor his station, brighten his face, and sanctify his soul—for he was toward the brothers compassionate, merciful, dutiful, and kind; and that he—may Allah be pleased with him—excelled with his books, compositions, epistles, and journals (Kunnashat) ² with the utmost creativity, and he diversified, innovated, explained, and clarified what he narrated of the Inner (Batin) regarding the Monotheism of the Worshipped Meaning (al-Ma'na al-Ma'bud), thereby benefiting the people of extremism and elevation; and the Sheikhs,